Ash Wednesday

For the beginning of the Lenten season in the Holiest City, I wanted to kick things off right -- I wanted to attend Eucharist at Dormition Abbey, one of the Christian churches near my neighborhood and one less likely to be overrun by tourists (making your way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre these days is nigh impossible)

Being my usual self I was running late that morning and only left the German Colony at 9:45am, attempting to make 10 am mass at the Abbey.  I scrambled in the heat of that morning down through the gardens of Yemin Moshe, past Sultan Pool (long since dried up) and jogged up the steep slopes of Mount Zion, arriving at the top just in time to hear the steeple bells ring out the hour.

I entered the cool, sacred space of the Abbey at precisely 10 am, sweating and out of breath and... completely alone.

I am not in the least surprised by this. After all, it is my fate to have bad timing in all of life's aspects; even when I do manage to be punctual to some event -- a rare occasion indeed -- something else inevitably goes wildly amiss: I find I'm in the wrong classroom or standing on the wrong platform or that the thing happened yesterday.  This was the correct building, though... so some other mistake.  Oh, Elise.

I slumped into a small wooden chair in the front row and caught my breath.   Once I caught it, I decided to hold my own little service since I'd missed the real one, complete with chant-singing.  Of course, the moment I finished singing I turned around to find one of the Benedictine brothers standing there complete with brown wool tunic, leather belt and other monkish finery, staring at me as if to say, "Was im Namen des Heiligen Vaters ist hier passiert?"

I struggled in my out-of-practice German and asked der Bruder when the Ash Wednesday service had taken place.  He answered me in English (not a sign of ringing endorsement for my German skills), saying that the service had been at 7:15 that morning.

Oops. 

I thanked him as he swished silently around some corner, disappearing whence he came, and took some time to be silent.  Here is the front of the Abbey:

Icon in the Abbey, courtesy of Jerusalem Shots

Thus began my Lenten journey in Jerusalem.  More anon!

Love,

Elise